Progress Since My Last Post

• Wrapped up Chapter 14: Maintaining and Optimizing Operating Systems

  • The final sections of this chapter covered backup and recovery in a general sense, as well as Windows specifics. I went ahead and took this chance to enable System Restore, Backup & Restore, and File History for the full suite of Windows backup and recovery tools. I also went through our family’s photos and got them all backed up locally, and to the cloud as well.

• Completed Chapter 15: Working with the Command-Line Interface

  • The Ubuntu virtual machine I set up came in handy immediately, I was able to jump right in and test Linux/Unix command-line tools.

• Completed Chapter 16: Troubleshooting Operating Systems

  • Went into some common troubleshooting procedures for Windows as well as troubleshooting common Windows issues. It also ended with a review of all of the hardware troubleshooting topics covered in the earlier chapters.

• Completed Chapter 17: Display Technologies

  • A lot of this chapter was review for me, but it did dive into projector types, components, and troubleshooting.

My First Case of Burn Out

I never realized that it was possible to get burnt out doing something I love. For about a week straight, I bit off a little more than I could chew (well a lot more than I could). I could tell that my fiancé was starting to get worn out, so I decided to try giving her as much of a break as I could, without slowing down in my studying at all. The result was what I believe was a week straight of 3 hours of consistent sleep each day. I felt completely fine doing this, until it was already too late. I was breezing through content and retaining what I was learning. Then I returned to work after a weekend off. I was exhausted on arrival.

I work an unconventional work schedule, which is a 12 hour shift (6PM to 6AM) rotation 2 days on, 2 days off, 3 days on, 2 days off, 2 days on, 3 days off on a repeating biweekly schedule. Turns out, 3 hours of sleep a day on a 60 hour total 7 day stretch is not sustainable, but was very easy to achieve by pure accident. I ended up having to take a few days off studying to relax a bit, especially after the work week.

From here on out, I’m going to have to be a little more systematic about how I handle my study time, making sure that I’m leaving time to at least get some sleep. What does that systematic approach look like? Well, I have no idea. It is so difficult to build a consistent study schedule when my work schedule is inconsistent by nature. Throw a baby into the equation, and structure has to take a back seat. Then there’s the goal of an entry level IT position, which would flip that whole schedule on its head. Not to mention, my study days are pretty much only relegated to my days off now.

What I learned the hard way is that I can’t be good for my family unless I am good myself. That’s where my biggest motivation for making this transition comes in. Providing better consistency for my family. If I myself am feeling the inconsistency of my own schedule and the time available for myself to spend with my family and pursue my studies, I can only imagine that they too feel that same inconsistency, especially when study takes away from family time.

Post Burn Out Progress

• After a short break, I tackled Chapter 18: Essentials of Networking

  • It covered host roles, NICs, frames (sets of data moved from one device to another, processed by NICs) in a general sense, Ethernet and the different Cat standards and cables, structured cabling, and the star bus topology.

• Started Chapter 19: Local Area Networking

  • I learned about IPv4 addressing, IPv6 addressing, subnet masks, and DNS. DNS ended up being part review from when I set up this domain name as well as building off the things I learned on that small side-quest.

Scheduling My Exams, and Job Hunting

A few weeks back, I paid for my Core 1 and Core 2 exam vouchers, I just hadn’t had the time to sit down with my fiancé and figure out a good date for them. It was at this point I realized a problem. While this career transition was well thought out, I acted in haste, and unknowingly purchased a textbook for V14 of the exam which closes on September 25th, 2025. That is 12 days away from the time of writing. After which, V15 (220-1201 and 220-1202) will be the only exams available. My original plan was to schedule Core 1 for early December and Core 2 for Early January, but with this new discovery, I had to make a small adjustment. I opted to schedule Core 1 for Early January and Core 2 for early February. This should give me time to finish the book study, fill in any gaps between the exam versions, and leave me with a month to review my notes before each exam. I believe having a set deadline in front of me will help in keeping me moving forward to my goal.

The Resume and Job Search

I took a few days off studying to prioritize my job search. Since we are entering the “slow season” at my current job, my hours can be cut at a moment’s notice, without pay. I reached out to the different contacts I’ve made over the past few months about potential job leads, and…nothing. Initially, this was extremely discouraging. It isn’t a particularly good feeling to feel “stuck“ at a job that you don’t particularly enjoy, and one that very soon will not be paying the bills. I couldn’t even tell you how many jobs I’d applied for and only got standard rejections, or no response at all, and no feedback as to why I wasn’t considered for an interview. If I had to guess, the reason most likely comes down to other candidates having certifications, work experience, or college education that I do not.

This entire time, I’ve been updating the resume that I originally created in 2016. While I’m not sure if this is the case or not, it is possible that ATS systems were just throwing out my resume. I took some time to rewrite my resume from the ground up with formatting that can be easily scraped by ATS systems (at least I believe that’s the case). I realized that since I last updated my resume in June, my technical knowledge expanded by quite a bit. I created a new professional skills section where I listed all of the A+ content that I’ve learned in my studies that I am comfortable using in the workplace today. I also created a certifications section where I put my exam dates and the percentage of the way I am through my study materials so that hiring managers can see that I made both the time and financial commitment to this transition. After I applied for a handful of jobs, I noticed a very serious problem…

When the Website On Your Resume is Broken

The link to my website on my resume, cover letter, LinkedIn profile, and e-mail signature, https://www.kylebouder.dev, which originally redirected to https://blog.kylebouder.dev was returning an invalid SSL certificate error, and I have no idea how long it’s been this way. I had this set up a very specific way previously. Hashnode’s SSL certificate is able to be passed to my own domain. For me, blog.kylebouder.dev pointed to hashnode.network, www.kylebouder.dev pointed to blog.kylebouder.dev, and kylebouder.dev also pointed to blog.kylebouder.dev. There were a few reasons why I did it this way initially:

• I didn’t have the knowledge of setting up a Web Server and getting a page live

• While I know my way around HTML and CSS, I am by no means a web designer (and don’t wish to be)

• I don’t feel like I enough to show where a landing page would be beneficial enough to justify the cost (at least not yet)

This setup handled SSL certificates for me, and allowed me to use my Hashnode blog’s home page as a temporary solution.

Identifying the Issue

The first thing I tried to do here was purchase my own SSL certificate and apply it to kylebouder.dev and www.kylebouder.dev. I figured, if the certificate isn’t being inherited correctly, surely providing my own paid certificate would be the most stable long-term solution to this problem, especially since they ended up not being terribly expensive. This would also allow me to have a self-sufficient domain that didn’t rely on other’s certificates. Once I applied my SSL certificate to kylebouder.dev and www.kylebouder.dev, I started receiving a new error: 404: Deployment Not Found.

The only other thing I knew to do at this point was to double-check my DNS records. I noticed that my ALIAS and CNAME records were pointing to a strange web address that I did not recognize, and definitely did not configure myself (a large string of letters and numbers.supersonic.ai). E-mail forwarding was also enabled and had a TXT record to a similar address. Oddly enough, my blog CNAME value was left intact, explaining why blog.kylebouder.dev was still functioning as it should. My immediate concern was that my site was hacked. Thankfully that was not the case.

After making sure the account was secure, I went ahead and began changing the configuration to what I had set it to originally. The result wasn’t what I expected though. Researching the address led me to discover that it was pointing to the free CDN service provided to me by my registrar. I wish that they didn’t change my configuration for me without any input or notification, but what’s done is done.

In hindsight, simply configuring the CDN would have solved this entire problem from the beginning. At least I know now what a Content Delivery Network is and why having one is beneficial.

When Fixing a Problem Creates a New One

Once my ALIAS and CNAME attributes were at their original values, a new issue emerged: An SSL certificate mismatch error. What ended up happening here was that my own SSL certificate was conflicting with Hashnode’s SSL certificate. The simplest solution would be to remove the SSL certificate from my domain and configure everything the way I had it before. Seeing as I had just purchased a 5 year certificate with the intention of future-proofing my domain setup, I decided against this. Also, I really didn’t want to waste that money. What I decided to do instead was to lease a Web Server from my registrar and build a simple landing page that links to my blog.

Building the Landing Page, and Learning cPanel

My landing page is extremely basic, it’s simply a header and two links. It isn’t pretty, but it’s much better than a potential hiring manager getting an SSL certificate error when trying to access my blog (which is extremely embarrassing, I might add…and may also have contributed to my lack of interviews). Setting this up required learning a completely new set of tools available through cPanel. I only poked around in the areas that I needed to configure to get things working, as the immediate goal was to provide hiring managers with anything that wasn’t some kind of error, but also got them to where they were intending to go .

I wrote a very simple home page in HTML and pushed it to my Web Server’s file system, and in an instant it was live. I then went into cPanel’s DNS records (which annoyingly is called Zone Editor and was quite difficult to find), and set up the proper redirect for the blog subdomain. After pushing all of the changes, I was a bit stumped because all of the DNS checking tools I’ve used in the past were showing that everything was correct, yet my blog was completely inaccessible. It dawned on me that the DNS checker would return that everything was functioning correctly if it were just a few minutes ago. Everything was working properly after overnight propagation.

What’s Next

First and foremost, I need to continue pushing through this book. Once complete, I will check to see if any written material has been released for the V15 of the A+ exam (aside from the exam objectives, of course). I’ve never been big on reading, I guess all it took was finding the right kind of book. I am hoping that someone releases something with only the material that’s changed between the two versions of the exams. If I am unable to find anything like that, I will likely turn to Professor Messer’s YouTube videos, and use those to build my notes further. Also, some kind of website status reporting needs to be in order…

Lab Setup

I discovered that the small storage closet in my laundry room has outlets inside. What better way to study than to...take some of my fiancé’s storage space away and make a "server rack". This lab will provide me hands on experience with virtualization, networking, running cable, and Windows Server administration. I plan on creating a separate series of blog posts outlining the whole setup. From conceptualization to implementation, as well as documenting any potential issues and solutions. I’m particularly excited for this project, and I imagine that it will be a great way to review for the exam.

I have actually since discovered that the closet directly across from the one I mentioned has yet another set of outlets, which my fiancé was kind enough to point out to me. I am very grateful that she is so supportive of me setting up this lab. I don’t think she knows what she signed up for…

Memorization

While Obsidian has been a very helpful tool for gaining a deep understanding of these topics just by organizing my different notes and linking between them, although, this isn’t a complete replacement for “traditional“ studying. Something I’ve been doing on my work breaks is running through practice tests on various apps available for Android. The one I’ve been using the most is simply called “CompTIA A+ Exam Training 2024“. What I like about this one is that it keeps track of the types of questions I get wrong often. While most of these end up being topics I haven’t covered yet, the further I get into my book study, the easier it is to pinpoint my weak points. Some of my struggle areas are PCIe generation transfer rates, USB generation transfer rates, Cat rating transfer rates, UTP cabling standards T568A/B, and TCP/IP port numbers. For these, I intend on creating both physical and digital flash cards to practice with. Digital ones that I can access from anywhere on any device for personal use, and a stack of physical cards that my family can pull out and test me with randomly. I think this approach will work.

I knew that this wasn’t going to be an easy journey, but I’m still all in, one cert at a time.

While I was on my paternity leave, I set a lofty goal for myself of studying for 8 hours a day, every day, and getting the absolute most out of the time off work to push myself further towards the goal of getting my CompTIA A+ certification and my first entry level IT position. In reality, I got a single chapter done in those two weeks. Having a baby is such an amazing experience that nothing I have ever experienced even comes close to. However, it proved to be a massive adjustment that honestly takes time. The combination of being a first time parent, and my lack of experience with babies, that adjustment period took a little longer than my paternity leave actually covered.

During this time, I found it extremely difficult to focus on new content in my book study and I ended up spending most of that time bonding with our child, learning how to care for a newborn, and slowed down on my book study considerably. As I’m sure many first time fathers can relate to, having a baby is a little nerve-racking. We were blessed with a very healthy baby, but the first few weeks were still scary. Even though nothing was ever wrong, between checking on her, caring for her, bonding with her as much as possible in her waking moments, and also spending time with our other kids, it was impossible for me to get a solid study routine figured out right away. As it turns out, it’s a little difficult to learn IT while learning how to care for a baby.

Instead of focusing on new content, aside from Chapter 10 which focused on various peripherals and their connectors, I spent time restructuring my Obsidian vault. When I first started my note-taking, I created folders for each of the certifications I plan on getting for the first phase of my IT career, these being the A+, Network+, and Security+ certifications, or the Trifecta as it is often referred to. My book study notes were housed in that A+ folder that I created. I quickly realized that there would be heavy overlap between the A+ certification, any future certifications, and any personal projects that I choose to take on. Instead of treating each certification as a self contained notebook, I made the adjustment of breaking everything down into small categories with notes that will be expanded on as I pursue further certifications and learn on the job. I then went through the official exam objectives outlined by CompTIA, and rewrote them in my notes, linking to any notes that I have created on those topics thus far. This proved to be very time consuming (thankfully I decided to do this now rather than later), but was much easier to focus on while adjusting to life with a newborn. It also had the added benefit of being able to get a good visual of my current progress, and will be very helpful when it comes time to review.

It was during this time that I actually landed my first interview for a help desk position. While I don’t know what the outcome will be, it was really great to have the opportunity not only to get that first interview, but to chat with people as enthusiastic about tech as I am.

Post-Adjustment Progress

After my paternity leave was up and I returned to work, I was able to buckle down and push through more content in the book. This time, I was able to complete Chapter 11 which focused on operating system installation, but also touched on the different editions of Windows and their features…which ultimately pushed me to purchase a Pro license of Windows 11 to get the full feature set that I could mess around with on my personal system. A lot of this was review, as I’ve been installing and upgrading operating systems since I was in elementary school. But the textbook’s coverage of troubleshooting OS installation issues was all new to me, and is useful to know.

I then moved on to Chapter 12 which covered various Control Panel applets, Windows Tools, and Settings menus for configuring. This section was fairly dense, and took a considerable amount of time to get through. This was mostly to do with the Settings app layout changing a lot since the book was printed…in March of this year. I opted to create my notes on the way that the Settings app is currently laid out, just to have the most up-to-date information in my notes. I don’t imagine that the A+ exam tests on actual setting locations, rather it should test on setting functions. I hope that I am correct in that assumption. The most interesting section covered in this was the Microsoft Management Console (MMC). Before reading this chapter, I knew that some utilities came as standard executables, and that others came in an .msc format, but I never knew why and never had any reason to look into it before. I had no idea that those .msc files were snap-ins that could be grouped together into a single window. I also had no idea that Computer Management existed as a pre-configured group of the most frequently used snap-ins for managing a PC. I also had no idea just how many of these snap-ins existed.

Chapter 13 went even deeper into configuration with a dive into users, groups, NTFS permissions, and group policies and also covered some basic security concepts like authentication, authorization, and encryption. It was at this point I decided that upgrading to a Pro license of Windows 11 would be very beneficial. From having access to the full set of administrative tools, drive encryption, RDP support without workarounds, and the ability to experiment with Hyper-V in the future, the upgrade made perfect sense. At the end, it touched on the chown and chmod commands for managing permissions and ownership on Linux and macOS. I spun up an Ubuntu virtual machine in VMWare to mess around in as more Linux material gets introduced.

I then started Chapter 14 which covers maintaining and optimizing operating systems. At this point, I am just shy of halfway to being finished with the book, jumping from 30% at the time of my last post to 45% (based on page count).

Looking Forward

I purchased my exam vouchers and plan on scheduling core 1 for December and core 2 for January. I think this will give me plenty of time to finish my book study and leave about a month of review before each of the exams. I also went ahead and purchased the Network+ and Security+ books by Mike Meyers as well, and may pick up the Linux+ book for fun. Once I get my A+ certification, I intend on diving right in to the next 2 certs. I also intend on continuing blogging on a more frequent basis. In the time I had available to me over the past few weeks, I had to choose between writing a blog post and pushing on through studying, and studying seemed like the smart choice.

Still determined — One cert at a time!

When I was writing my last blog post, I realized that I was spending a lot of time doing little side-quests. While I was learning a lot of useful skills like Python, prepping my Active Directory learning environment through virtualization with VMWare, and DNS configuration, all of that time was taken away from my book study. Over the past two weeks, I sat down and completed Chapter 7 - Power Supplies, completed Chapter 8 - Mass Storage, and completed Chapter 9 - Implementing Mass Storage.

Chapter 7 covered power supply form factors, connectors, components and their functions, and processes for selecting, installing, and troubleshooting power supplies. AC Adapters, (RPS) Redundant Power Supplies, Modular Power Supplies, and general fire safety were also covered. It wasn’t until I hit this chapter that the power of Obsidian started to show itself.

Chapter 8 covered HDDs, SSDs, consumer standards (such as PATA, SATA, and NVMe), as well as Enterprise Standards (such as SCSI and SAS), albeit in lighter detail. Performance metrics, RAID configurations, and processes for selecting drives, installing them, BIOS configuration, and installation troubleshooting were covered at the end.

Chapter 9 was long, and was essentially Hard Drives pt.2. This chapter was all about logical drives and was extremely dense compared to previous chapters. Covering sectors, pages, blocks, clusters, partition tables, partition types, formatting, fragmentation, file systems, partitioning on Windows (with macOS and Linux basics), troubleshooting hard drives (again, with macOS and Linux basics), as well as covering the Windows tools Disk Management and Storage Spaces.

At the time of writing, I am currently 30% through reading and note-taking for the A+ certification (Meyers’ A+ Study Guide Book covers both Core 1 and Core 2 exam content at the same time in most chapters). While I believe that I am overstudying for these exams, I feel that having a strong foundational understanding will propel me to much greater heights. I’m the kind of person who, if you put a textbook in front of me and tell me to read it cover to cover and learn it on my own, wouldn’t follow through. The fact that I can study deeply for hours on end and enjoy every minute of it tells me this is the right move for me.

Using Obsidian as a “Second Brain”

What is Obsidian, and what is that mess of dots and lines?

Obsidian is an extremely powerful note-taking application that uses Markdown formatting. Markdown is an easy-to-read markup language, if you’ve written a blog post here on Hashnode, then you’ve used Markdown. The key strength of Obsidian over other note-taking applications I’ve used (including pen and paper) is the ability to link to other notes. The screenshot above shows the Graph View. What you’re seeing may look quite messy, as each dot represents a single note, and each line represents a link from one note to another.

After finishing my note-taking on power supplies, I went for a different approach with my notes. I began creating Master Index notes for hardware components. For now, these are only at an A+ certification level of knowledge, but as I grow my career with on-the-job training and start tackling future certs, they will grow into being my knowledge base that I intend to use throughout my career. Back to that messy graph view, there’s a way to clean it up while using it as a valuable tool. Enter Obsidian’s next strength: tags.

Tags can be thrown into your notes, allowing you to change the color of the notes in the Graph View, or can be used in the search bar for review. A search for “#core1 #concept #cpu“ will pull up every note with those tags, effectively showing me every CPU concept that is covered on the CompTIA A+ Core 1 exam.

The way I have this set up currently, I can, at a moment’s notice, do a search for every “#core1 #key-term #hardware” (every A+ Core 1 key-term regarding hardware) or “#core2 #process #linux” (every A+ Core 2 process involving Linux). This is going to make review much easier, especially once I determine my weak points at the end of studying.

Searching for tags in action.

My Second Brain

What started as a vault to manage my CompTIA A+ studying, quickly turned into a general IT notebook. I have begun using it to organize not only my notes, but my transition into IT. I started using a home page for my notebook that has quick links to everything that I use, as well as a nice progress bar where I can keep track of my book study progress (this has been extremely useful for getting through such a thick book). It is here that I lay out my current plan. I know that I want to do something dealing with hybrid cloud infrastructure engineering. I’ve been slowly learning more and more about that field, and some of the different specializations (specific cloud environments, multi-cloud, automation, consultation, etc.).

I’m not going to act like the next 5-10 years of my life are already planned out, but I have a rough understanding of the certs I need to go down a hybrid cloud path, and I imagine I will fall into something that I really enjoy as I go. Regardless, the idea here is that I will expand my Master Indexes with the material covered in future certs, and will be able to tag and link to those specific notes from that exam’s specific objective list.

This will effectively create a comprehensive notebook for study and review, as well as a personal notebook that I can reference for anything IT.

Customization

Your vault can be customized however you want, and can be designed for any use case. The plugin support is exceptional in Obsidian, allowing you to add progress bars, tools for creating tables, tools for creating diagrams (and embedding them into your notes), and much more. There are thousands of community plugins available directly from the app, and many more available on Github.

How Obsidian Helped Me Memorize Understand Complex Topics

The way I take notes starts with reading the book and taking notes as I go in a single, long note. I continue this approach until:

• A.) The chapter is finished (I’m making it to this point less and less as the material is getting longer and denser)

• B.) The single chapter note starts getting really long

• C.) The material starts making heavy references to topics, concepts, or key terms stated earlier in the chapter

Once I hit one of these, I start condensing my giant note into smaller, individual notes. Any term, concept, hardware component, or process gets its own note. I then organize these onto their own Master Index (or multiple Master Indexes depending on the context). For example, the chapter on Power Supplies went on a brief case airflow tangent. In this case, I created an Airflow Master Index and linked it to my Power Supply Master Index through the Power Supply Fan Component Note that I made.

For example, in my Mass Storage Master Index, I have a list of file systems used by each operating system (Windows, macOS, and Linux), each with their own note. I also created general notes for file systems usable by each operating system that I place in the Operating System’s Master Index.

This multi-step process, the book study, followed by reorganization of notes and creating notes for different master indexes, had an unintended side effect (one that I believe will be in even greater effect once I finish linking my notes to the official exam objectives). I found myself naturally learning through understanding exactly what operating systems use by default, and what they can use given a little bit of extra work, even if in a limited capacity (like macOS being able to read from NTFS file systems but not being able to write to them).

This same approach actually helped me develop a solid understanding of what the different RAID configurations do, what they’re used for, how many drives are required (and how many drives would cause the entire array to be lost), and what RAID looks like using a RAID controller vs. software configuration like Disk Management in Windows Server vs. Storage Spaces on home versions of Windows. I was really worried about trying to memorize RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 0+1, and all the information about them, but organizing my notes in Obsidian made this a non-issue.

Linking A+ Notes to Personal Experiences

At the very beginning of my BIOS/UEFI note-taking, I completed my first “home lab” assignment of converting my hard drive from an MBR to GPT partition. While this was less intentional and more of an unexpected rabbit hole, it proved incredibly valuable. You can read all about it here.

As I continued reading through subsequent chapters (specifically the end of the Firmware chapter and throughout the Mass Storage chapters), I noticed the topics covered directly correlated with my experience completing that process. While I may have had to go a little bit deeper than the A+ certification covers on its own, I was able to notice mentions of certain topics that were covered in that lab and link to the lab directly from my A+ notes. In the lab, I learned the process through troubleshooting and research; the book study and note-taking taught me the why. That deep understanding and documentation linking will be extremely helpful moving forward.

Your “Second Brain” Everywhere You Go

For version control and file synchronization, you have many options. In the past, I’ve synced my notes to Google Drive; you could use Syncthing, or even push your notes to GitHub. Obsidian offers a premium feature called Obsidian Sync. This lets you sync your vaults between all devices and works in real time. I know that setting up this synchronization myself would have been more cost effective, but being able to have access to my digital notebook from any device, at any time, is very helpful. Edits I make on my phone appear on my desktop PC almost instantly.

Advanced Usage

I have yet to see Obsidian’s full potential, especially through the use of plugins. I have, however, seen people integrate it into their IDEs and even implemented automated NotebookLM integration. Once I dig deeper into Python, I plan on experimenting with this. Having an AI assistant with my notes specifically as its source among other tailored sources sounds like it could be incredibly useful and I’m excited to see what can be achieved by doing so.

Still all in – One cert at a time!

• Finished Chapter 6 - Motherboards

• Started Chapter 7 - Power Supplies (covering electricity concepts)

• Started learning Python

• Installed Git

• Configured System PATH to get git to work in Command Prompt, PowerShell, and Visual Studio Code

• Created, Cloned, Committed, and Pushed to my first GitHub Repository (a Python learning repo showcasing the things that I’m learning

• Updated my GitHub profile and linked to it from my blog, my LinkedIn, and my resume

• Started networking socially

Power Supplies, Ohms, and Multimeters…oh no…

This week, I finished out Chapter 6 which covered motherboard components and form factors, and started Chapter 7 - Power Supplies. The parts of Chapter 7 that I’ve read so far explain the basics of electricity (watts, voltage, current, ohms, and all of that fun stuff). I think this section is going to give me the most trouble. A suggested task in the text book is to use a multimeter to test an outlet in my home. Hot to Neutral should be ~115 V, hot to ground should be ~115 V, and Neutral to Ground should be 0 V. I’m going to take this opportunity to test all of the outlets in my home. I imaging that through repetition, I will be able to learn the functions of the multimeter just fine. I will say, sticking things into power outlets goes against everything that I have ever been taught, so I will be sure to check the manual, and the textbook before attempting this. I have since tested an outlet, and it went fine, 118 V where it should be and 0 V where it shouldn’t. I did notice that depending on where I put the probe, it would drop down to 50 V. My guess is that was just me not making proper contact, since readings were normal on subsequent attempts.

My First Foray Into Python and Why?

I took an evening to do a little side quest, setting up Python in Visual Studio Code, installing, setting up, and learning Git, and diving into a little bit of Python scripting. For background knowledge, I have fundamental knowledge of quite a few languages. In high school, I made a point to take every single computer class that was offered, while most were Microsoft Office and general computer usage related, there were a few introductory programming classes. The classes I took were Introduction to C++, Introduction to Java, and Introduction to Visual Studio .NET, and a web design class. The web design class I took in high school was a little different, we used Dreamweaver and it was all drag-and-drop. I took the opportunity to teach myself HTML and CSS and wrote my website from scratch, for fun. After my time in school, I experimented with C, more advanced C++ topics, C#, and GML (Game Maker Studio’s scripting language, my original plans after school were to become a video game developer). That being said, I already have a strong understanding of data types, functions, loops, classes, strings, etc. For me, this made learning Python a breeze, sort of. The biggest difference between Python and other languages that I’ve learned in the past, is that Python is almost written like a spoken language. The syntax is completely different from what I’m used to.

for(int i; i<10, i++) {
    std::printf(i);
}

for variable in sequence:
    print(f"{variable}")

I was going to try and recreate a snippet from my python-learning page in C++, but quickly learned that I lack the knowledge of vectors in C++, so I was unable to do so… But essentially, Python is easy to get things implemented, fast to get results, and much more readable.

What Podcasts Taught Me About Automation

I’ve spoken previously about listening to a lot of podcasts related to IT Careers, mentioning The Bearded I.T. Dad as being one of my favorites. Unfortunately…I’ve listened to his entire library of content. I found another podcast called The Art of Network Engineering which is similar, but focuses more on Networking, Cloud, Automation, and Cybersecurity. In basically every conversation that the host has with his guests (specifically in the automation space), they mention Python and Kubernetes and the power of using those together. I know what Python is, I don’t know a thing about Kubernetes not even enough to write about it confidently, but I am intrigued and understand that it is a very powerful tool. Python can also be run on any platform without the need of rewriting to support other platforms. Not to mention, while my programming skills aren’t fully developed, it’s something that I would consider myself to have an aptitude for.

The Pursuit of a Better Culture

One of the things driving my career transition is the desire for a workplace culture that better aligns with my values as a father and professional. I was told that if I left work during my partner’s labor, even just an hour before midnight, I could face disciplinary action up to and including termination. Why? Because the baby may not be officially born until after midnight, and their policy only allows paternity leave to begin on the day of birth.

That hits hard. It was a clear reminder of how rigid some workplaces can be, and how little space there is for the realities of life and family. I knew right then that I needed to build a future in a field where being a father, and a human being, isn’t treated like a liability to a company's bottom line.

That’s a huge part of why I’m making this leap into IT. I want a career that challenges me, grows with me, and most importantly, supports the life I’m working so hard to build, both professionally and for my family.

Making Studying a Family Affair

The only way I can make this work is if I keep up clear communication with my partner and with our children. When dealing with the kind of intensive study that certifications require, it can be challenging to describe how monumental the task is and how time consuming it can be. I was listening to a podcast, where one of the guests spoke about how he handled that with his family.

What I did, was print out a few copies of the exam objectives. Each week, I am going to highlight each section:

• Green: Exam Ready

• Blue: Needs Review

• Pink: Needs Work

This will allow my entire family to know at a glance what my overall progress is, with the understanding that once everything is green, I'm ready to take the exam, and can take a small break from all the studying. While they are still young, this could potentially pique their curiosity towards tech and possibly allow me to teach them some of this stuff as well. I brought them with me to print out the packets, sat down and highlighted everything based on my own knowledge. They seemed largely uninterested, for now.

I have a lot of guilt for giving up time with them over studying. That's been particularly challenging for me to deal with. Thankfully, I have an extremely supportive partner who encourages me each and every day to keep moving forward. I'm not entirely sure that I would be able to do this without her. The main advice I can give anyone trying to get into the field is, if you're single, go all in, you have nothing but time.

If you have a partner, or kids at home, be very mindful about their needs. If they need you to take a break for some family time, take a break. But also, communicate the why behind what you're doing. If you are open with your partner, and children, about why you are putting this work in, you may find that they will be supportive of you, even at a very young age.

Learning to Network (When You Know No One)

Networking, blogging, and social media do not come naturally to me. For instance, my facebook has a profile picture...but that's about it. From what I've been able to gather, listening to podcasts about other's experience in the field, your online presence is very important for landing roles. A phrase I hear all the time from all sorts of people in tech is, "Sometimes it isn't what you know, it's who you know." For me, I don't know anyone in the field personally, and I kept thinking to myself, “Well, even if I do reach out to someone in the field, I have nothing to offer.” Maybe that's imposter syndrome talking, or maybe that's just being realistic when trying to talk to someone who is many tiers up into their IT career while I am still at the bottom, or rather below the bottom. As it turns out, people in the IT industry are just people. Often people who have the same goals, or even started in the same place.

I’ve also stumbled across this wonderful place called Meetup. It’s essentially just a space where people with similar interests can schedule local meetups to get to know one another. To my surprise, there is a whole community of people in my hometown who meet very regularly. Some of these meeting events have guest speakers, and others are just coffee hangouts where people interested in tech can meet and talk to other people in tech. I recommend everyone check this out, regardless of your interests. There might just be something here for everyone.

Looking Ahead: Intense Study and Networking

In the previous weeks, I spent a lot of time on studying and did a few labs or lab set-ups on the side. The development of my home lab and planning how I want to lay it all out has been really fun, but I did notice something really crucial. The time I was spending on my book study was decreasing steadily. For the time being, I am going to focus almost entirely on my book study while also trying to land my first entry level position. Once I get to the networking and security chapters of the A+ textbook, I am going to start setting up my home lab network to get that hands on experience that I need. Any day now, our baby will arrive, and I will have 2 weeks off work. After communication with my partner, it came clear to me that these 2 weeks will be crucial for my studies.

I don't know exactly what to expect during these first 2 weeks, this is the first child of my own, but my overly optimistic goal is going to try and plan 8-10 hour blocks each day for study, simulations, labs, and networking with others in the field who seem to have similar stories as mine.

Still all in! On the topic of networking, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. Not only would I love to connect with people in the field, but I would love to connect with people making this transition themselves.

This weeks progress included:

• Completed Chapter 5

• Started Chapter 6

• Purchased the Total Seminars Sim and Practice Test Bundle

  • Began working through simulations to catch up with my current reading progress

• Discovered that VMWare Workstation Pro is free for personal and educational use, installed it and set up two virtual machines:

  • Windows 11 Enterprise (evaluation version, 180-day limit)

  • Windows Server 2025 (evaluation version, 180-day limit)

• Installed Visual Studio Code with the following extensions:

  • PowerShell 7

  • Python

  • HTML/CSS

• Upgraded my main PC from Windows 10 to Windows 11

  • You can read about the troubleshooting process here.

• Refined my LinkedIn profile to better reflect my journey and focus

• Rewrote my resume to include links to both my LinkedIn and this blog

Upgrades & Setup

During the beginning of the week, I did a little bit of browsing to see what local jobs actually require at an entry or mid-level. I noticed that a lot of positions desire experience using Windows Server 2025 and Administrative Tools. These are two things that I always assumed would only be able to be taught to me on the job, and that there would be no easy way for me to learn these at home. I was wrong. I learned that anyone can learn Windows Server 2025 and Active Directory right now for free. I am happy to share those resources to you as well:

• Microsoft offers evaluation copies of Windows versions to anyone for the purpose of testing, and learning. These installations are valid for 180 days after installation, after which they require a license purchase or a fresh installation in its place.

• VMWare was acquired by Broadcom in November of 2023. Part of this acquisition involved making the software available for free to anyone for learning purposes, with the caveat being that you can’t sign up using a Gmail account. You may have to experiment with different e-mail providers before you hit one that is allowed, or you may have to find the installation files through other means (not recommended). Once you make it through the different roadblocks, you will be provided with a feature complete, fully up-to-date version of VMWare Workstation Pro that you can play around with, no license required.

• For Active Directory learning, Microsoft offers their own guide via Microsoft Learn. I’ve heard that Professor Messer’s CompTIA A+ and Security+ videos touch on this as well, and that CBT Nuggets’ YouTube videos are a good source as well, but I have yet to look through those myself.

Something I realized as I was going through the material in the book, was that a lot of the content referring to things in Windows 10 were outdated. My main PC was still running Windows 10, and I figured the best way to future proof my learning was to upgrade to Windows 11, especially before support ended. What was meant to start out at a simple in-place upgrade from Windows 10 to 11 quickly turned in to my first time taking the knowledge I learned from my book study and applying that in a real-world environment as I troubleshot a variety of issues relating to MBR to GPT Partition Conversion, Secure Boot, and BIOS Updates, all of which were required for Windows 11 to install. I documented the entire process here: https://blog.kylebouder.dev/uefi-boot-conversion-lab.

The Hawaiian Vacation Board

The last thing I did was purchase a bulletin board.

When I’m not studying, I spend a lot of time listening to various IT career podcasts on YouTube Music. One of my favorites is The Bearded I.T. Dad Podcast. I highly recommend it to anyone considering a jump into IT. I connect with his story on a very personal level, and the advice from him and his guests are incredibly helpful. Through listening to his guests speak about their various roles in IT, it helped paint a picture of what I want my path to be. Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure Engineer or Architect with working knowledge of PowerShell and Python to help implement and maintain efficient infrastructure solutions. Without this podcast, I would not have had such a clear goal in mind.

One of his guests talked about a concept called the “Hawaiian Vacation”. It’s not necessarily about going to Hawaii (although it could be). It’s about creating a visual reminder right in front of you that you see everyday that reminds you why you are putting all of the work in.

My “Hawaiian Vacation“ bulletin board is hanging up right in front of my desk, full of pictures of the family, notes from the kids, and a picture of them holding up our first ultrasound picture. For me, transitioning into IT isn’t for the money and never will be. Sure, there’s money, especially in cybersecurity, but technology has always been a passion of mine ever since I was a child. I’m not chasing some fancy vacation. I’m chasing stability, meaningful work, and the ability to be home in the evenings. I want to provide my family with every opportunity possible, whether that’s sports, school, or just time together.

That is why I need to make this work. That’s why I’m putting in the effort. And in all honesty, I’m loving every second of it.

The Balancing Act

Sometimes, life and familial obligations make it difficult to keep up with studying, especially when working full time, on 12 hour night shifts. This week in particular was very busy. We had our baby shower as well and our last family trip before our baby's arrival.

Despite the hectic schedule, I've tried to stay productive in small ways like jotting down notes while I'm on break at work (our breaks were just reduced from 30 to 20 minutes which makes this difficult to manage), or during long car rides. I've generally found that sitting down for a long study session works better for me than doing it in a place with many distractions.

Looking Ahead

This next week I want to focus primarily on the book and note taking, as well as start using Total Seminars Simulations for chapter review. I may go on some learning side quests if time permits. Right now, I really need to buckle down and continue getting through this book.

Still one dad making the leap into IT. Still going all in, one cert at a time.

You can follow my progress, connect, or reach out anytime over on LinkedIn. I'd love to connect with others on the same path or those a little further ahead.

The DNS Side Quest

When I published my first blog post, I decided to attach it to my LinkedIn account. It turns out that LinkedIn is very picky about what links you put in your experience and featured sections. So I did what any sane person would do at 2 in the morning — I bought a domain name. This sent me down my first real-world experience with DNS records. Setting up A records and CNAMEs, troubleshooting propagation delays, and realizing just how invisible DNS errors can be was both frustrating and surprisingly satisfying.

In typical career shift fashion, while I was lying in bed trying to wrap my head around DNS propagation, my bed frame collapsed underneath me. That led to an emergency bedroom rearrange at 5 AM.

Seeing my blog finally go live under my own domain was a small victory, but an important one. This side quest gave me my first taste of real-world configuration work, something I know will pay off once I start doing labs for my future certifications.

Memory Access Pathways and Mental Roadblocks

I officially wrapped up Chapter 3 of my A+ studies this week and moved into Chapter 4, where I ran into one of my first serious roadblocks: Memory Access Pathways.

What started as simple RAM quickly turned into diving deep into data buses, address buses, memory controllers, and understanding how modern systems actually move data back and forth. I had to backtrack into CPU architecture to even make sense of it. Once I worked through the confusion, everything started to click.

I even built out some personal diagrams to help myself better visualize the data pathways. This is my favorite one so far:

I plan on making more of these for harder-to-grasp concepts. I might pick a day and knock out a batch of them. These can be made directly inside Obsidian using the Excalidraw plugin, which allows me to link or embed the diagrams right into my notes. It’s proven to be pretty useful so far.

This was one of those moments where I could feel my understanding shift from memorizing terms to truly grasping how these systems interact.

The RAM Breakdown

After working through Memory Access Pathways, I finished out Chapter 4 and completely restructured my notes into a more atomic format. I broke RAM down by generation — DDR3, DDR4, DDR5 — and started building connections between architecture, installation procedures, troubleshooting, and system requirements and recommendations.

Some of the Windows material I’m studying is already starting to phase out in real life, like the gradual migration of some Control Panel applets to the Settings app (along with the removal of hotkeys to access them). But knowing both the old and new approaches helps me better understand how Windows evolved and where it’s heading.

The Non-Study Days

This week was not just study. I spent time with the kids, including a mini technical project of its own: setting up cross-platform Minecraft multiplayer between Switch, Steam Deck, and PC. This turned out to be much more difficult than I expected. It involved parental controls across multiple ecosystems, Microsoft Family (and Xbox Family) and Google Family Link, Nintendo accounts, and a surprising amount of research. There was also a ridiculous number of apps needed to get everything working.

While this isn’t exam content, one of my focus points with this career shift is making sure that I’m not neglecting my family. I know my studying will eat into time that I could be spending with them, but I want to plan things with and for them that include working on skills like this. One of the things I started doing was having the kids run me through the practice tests at the end of each chapter.

I try to make sure they understand that this work I’m putting in is for their benefit as well. And who knows, maybe they’ll pick up a few things along the way. Maybe they’ll even find an interest in the IT world too.

Financial Planning and Preparation

In addition to studying and technical work, I also took time this week to sit down and focus on financial planning for the transition. With the internship, part-time work, and the baby on the way, I want to stay on top of every aspect of our budget.

I read a really interesting article that suggested using ChatGPT to analyze bank statements (after removing any identifying information of course) to create a personalized plan to pay off debt, hit personal goals, recognize forgotten subscriptions, and suggest ways to trim unnecessary spending. Naturally, I had to give it a shot.

We reviewed our current expenses, built out an updated monthly budget, and worked through some contingency plans for the months ahead. To my surprise, it was able to create a solid plan that would leave me with a substantial amount of money left over each month, even after taking a significant pay cut of $10–13 per hour and dropping my hours to make this leap into IT.

This step was just as important as any technical study. If I am going to make this career change work, I have to make sure my family is good first and foremost. Seeing the numbers laid out helps take some of the uncertainty out of the process and gives me even more confidence moving forward.

Looking Ahead

Next week will be a little bit lighter on work hours, so there will be more time to dive into a few more chapters. I plan to use lighter study days for reviewing and refining my notes while continuing to expand my tagging system inside Obsidian. I also plan on looking into some of the different A+ labs available, and may set up the spare PC I have in the living room as another device to use for labs. I'm thinking multiple VMs with remote access capabilities, and maybe even tying it into the new domain name I set up.

Every week gets a little more technical and a lot more exciting.

One cert at a time, still all in.

For the past 5 years, I've worked full-time in a demanding food manufacturing environment. The job pays the bills and offers stability, but after years of doing it, I know deep down: this isn't my long-term path. The longer I stay, the more that quiet frustration grows — the kind you push to the back of your head while convincing yourself you’re being “responsible.”

Eventually, that feeling caught up to me. And as life tends to do, everything started converging at once: my first child on the way (due in a little over a month), long conversations with my partner, and the realization that I don’t want to wake up five, ten, twenty years from now having never taken my shot.

So I’ve made the decision to fully transition into IT — something I’ve quietly enjoyed tinkering with for years, but never pursued professionally. Until now.

The Leap of Faith

Making this kind of change — especially with a family depending on me — is terrifying. There's always that voice in my head asking if I'm making a huge mistake, walking away from stability and comfort to chase something uncertain.

But the truth is, staying where I am feels far more dangerous than trying something new.

I don't have a degree. I don't have years of IT experience. What I do have is a clear goal, a plan, and an insane amount of motivation to do whatever it takes to build this new career from the ground up.

The Early Grind

I officially started my studies last Friday when my A+ textbook arrived. Since then, I've been working my way through it every single day.

So far, most of the information I've read makes a lot of sense, and I've thoroughly enjoyed every hour I’ve spent diving deep into this book and building up my digital notebook.

Honestly, I’ve had to force myself to stop studying some days — and that’s when I knew this is absolutely the right move for me.

Correcting misconceptions, seeing where my knowledge gaps are, and slowly building real understanding instead of just memorizing answers has been incredibly rewarding.

I know this is only the beginning. Right now, I have the flexibility to put in long study sessions. Working 3rd shift, I can study late into the night while the family is sleeping.

There’s the possibility of an IT internship at a small tech firm that I should hear back from in the coming week. It’s a significant pay cut, with fewer hours and no benefits, so I may need to pick up a part-time warehouse job, and maybe even a third job just to make everything work.

Regardless, I am ecstatic to be making this jump. Even if the internship doesn’t pan out, I will stop at nothing to make sure this career switch happens. I am ready, and more determined than I’ve ever been.

What I've Accomplished This Week

Since starting last Friday, I’ve:

• Read and taken notes on:

  • Chapter 00 - Introduction

  • Chapter 01 - Safety and Professionalism

  • Chapter 02 - The Visible Computer

  • Chapter 03 - CPUs (currently in progress)

• Set up a full Obsidian vault to track every concept, build flashcards, and create my long-term IT "career brain."

• Completely restructured how I study and document, using plugins to keep my notes organized and searchable.

• Maintained 4–8 hours of study per day, even while working nights and prepping for the baby’s arrival.

• Began building a roadmap not just for my A+, but for my long-term goal: hybrid cloud infrastructure design.

What This Blog Will Be

This isn’t going to be a highlight reel. I want this blog to document everything — the progress, yes, but also the struggles, the mental battles, the uncertainty, and the self-doubt that comes with making a life-changing career transition.

If you're someone who's considering making a similar leap, I hope reading this helps you feel a little less alone in the process. It's not easy — but that’s exactly why it’s worth it.

Thanks for following along. This is only the beginning.

One dad making the leap into IT — going all in, one cert at a time.